


The Lost Prince and the Scavenger

by Raynalee



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Fairy Tale Elements, Slow Burn, You might cry like a baby I did while writing this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:52:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynalee/pseuds/Raynalee
Summary: “The Lost Prince and the Scavenger...” Maz chuckles quietly now, almost as if to herself. “You know, either way you spin it kids - it’s quite the fairy tale. Practically writes itself…”Read along with an ancient text that unfolds as it is written, a bit like a Star Wars rendition of The Neverending Story. A simple fairy tale that has the power to change lives and entwine fates...





	The Lost Prince and the Scavenger

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been reading fanfiction for years now and never writing my own. I usually write children’s stories but I thought using my favorite characters and spinning my own fun tales from them would be a fun exercise, and I can finally join the authors I admire in one of my most enjoyable hobbies. Be kind darlings, I’ve never done this before but it was so much fun to write. I can’t wait to hear what you think! I love the Reyloverse so much <3

 

_Snoke smiled, a sadistic grin that would have made the devil himself run in terror. There were two copies of the text, for as the Light had one so must the Dark. He can change the ending. He would die, surely. But he was dead either way. This way….this way he would take the universe with him._

_He turned the ancient book over in his hands, a sinister grin donning his features and morphing them into terror itself._

_“And they will live unhappily ever after.,.”_

_He laughed then, and it was laughter that would chill anyone within earshot straight to the bone._

 

**Ten years later…..**

 

“Maz, just tells us what you know already will you!?” Poe exclaims. Finn is about to start screaming right along with him,starting to barrel forward toward the old woman, but Rose steps in as the voice of reason. Rose smiles inwardly to herself as she holds her boys back from verbally flaying Old Maz.

She likes to think that in moments like these she becomes her sister, and it makes her feel as though her sister is still with her, even now. She touches her necklace gently and takes a deep breath.

“While you impress us all with your volume and testosterone,” Rose starts quietly “You’ll get more answers if you LISTEN to her.” She smacks Finn upside the head. “Stop all this male posturing and THINK, will you? Our friend is in danger.” Rose places a hand on the shoulders of both Finn and Poe, feeling the tension eke through her fingers. She looks at Maz. “Please help us?”

Maz relaxes visibly.

“Well at least one of you younglings makes an ounce of sense,” Maz grumbles, climbing up a stack of shelves in the corner to grab a tattered old text.

“The Lost Prince and the Scavenger...” Maz chuckles quietly now, almost as if to herself. “You know, either way you spin it kids - it’s quite the fairy tale. Practically writes itself…”

  


**********************************

 

“So you mean to say we have been with each other before, in several lifetimes?” Rey asked, incredulous to the thought.

Ben laughs softly. “It appears the Force has a sense of humor,”

Rey slumped down next to where her enemy kneeled, his wounds making it impossible to do anything else. She could barely hold her feet under her anymore, either.

“And we screwed this one up good, then?”

Ben laughed harder, choking on the laughter as he coughed up still more blood. He was bleeding internally by now, he well knew. So was she, by the state of her.

“We had help,” he rasped, looking down at her with that fateful smirk she secretly adored. She could admit that now. It was the end, after all.

Rey laughed, wincing at the pain it brought her. At that moment tears came unbidden to her eyes, and she collapsed in his lap, entrusting her final moments to her once-enemy. ‘Not an enemy any longer,” she thought with a sad sort of smile. “ ‘We never should have been enemies…”

Ben caught her as she fell the rest of the way, for in that simultaneous fateful blow Kylo Ren had been rendered forever silent. He shifted, resting her head gently in his lap with a shaky sigh. It didn’t matter if he cried, he thought as the tears fell unchecked. It was just them, now. As it should have been all along.

“No,” he whispered, stroking her hair softly. “We shouldn’t have been.”

He reach out with his other hand, as they did once long ago in the caves of Ach To, and this time she grasped it as tightly as she could. It was her lifeline, after all. Because in the end Ben was her lifeline….and she was his.

“Ben,” Rey sobbed softly, looking up at him. “Will the war die with us? Will it be over?”

Ben closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of her hair between his tired fingers. Maker, he hoped so…

Rey caught his thought, plucked it out of their bond like a stray leaf on the wind.

“There is hope, then.” Rey closed her eyes and smiled softly, relaxing into the feel of his fingers gently stroking her hair. “That’s good. Hope is a powerful thing…”

‘There are stars in his eyes,’ Rey thought in wonder. And just like that, she fell into them.

  


****************************************

  


“So you mean this is happening RIGHT NOW?” Finn asks, about ready to faint. Poe grabbed his arm tightly and pressed his forehead into his lover’s shoulder.

Maz smiles. “The Force is as old as time, handsome. It also sometimes leaves tools, hints and clues behind to guide us on our path.” She frowns deeply then, looking about as old as the Force itself as she continues. “But as the Light has a copy of this book, then so must the Dark. For balance, of course. And the Dark will twist the story to it’s will, every time.”

“We have to DO something!” Jess runs up to them then, having been listening in the corner from the beginning. Rose was crying into Finn’s other shoulder as Poe practically tore his hair out by the roots with his left hand. “They’re dying, Maz!”

“What can we do?” Sobbed Finn. His best friend was dying as Maz held that ancient volume in her hands. “There’s got to be something…anything.”

“We do nothing.”

Poe, Finn, Rose, and Jess all looked at her in abject horror.

“WHAT?!” They all shrieked in unison.

Maz smiles sadly, but there was a hopeful glint in her eye in that moment. Rose held onto that glint and waited...waited…

Maz took a breath. “You don’t think I, an old woman, am the first being on the side of light to read this?” She laughed. “There is ALWAYS hope.”

They all hold onto each other as Maz looks back at the book.

And reads.

  


******************************

  


Ben opened his eyes in fear as her breathing lessened. He dragged his hand to the position of her heart and pressed down as hard as he possibly could, crying out a painful roar because that hand was as good as gone. And paled even more as he felt a whisper of a heartbeat about to fade into nothing.

That’s it then. He’d simply follow...because his heart didn’t beat without her, either.

He was as good as dead anyway.

He lowered them both gently to the ground, sobbing quietly as they lay facing each other. One arm he used as a pillow to carefully rest her lolling head, and as he lowered his forehead to press gently against hers the other hand enveloped both of her small, bleeding and calloused ones. Hands that were now as still as stone.

They’d go together. Of course they would. He didn’t mind if this was his end, having seen what could have been when the death blows were dealt. Life, what ifs, what mattered… they really did flash before your eyes. The Force gifted him with a vision of what was supposed to be, then cursed him with this reality.

He didn’t mind, as long as he could go with her. But Maker, he wished…

Suddenly he stopped crying, reverence settling over his prone form. He slowly raised his forehead and really, truly looked at the girl in his arms. The one so full of life that was now greeting Death like an old, familiar friend. And in that moment he knew.

He loved her. Stars above, he loved her.

“She loves you too, son.”

Ben started and looked up, his face raw with tears and grief as he took in the sight of his mother.

Leia Organa Solo stood there before him, in all the glory of the Force, and in that moment he knew she was gone. Gone...but here. She had found him.

And he didn't deserve it.

“Mother…” he choked. “I’m so sorry…”

Leia knelt down without a sound next to her son and Rey, holding a ghostly hand by her distraught boy’s cheek. Her poor lost boy, only found in his final moments on a planet she could scarcely remember the name of. But he was found nevertheless. She smiled.

“It was my time, son.”

Ben gasped, fighting to keep his eyes opened as they lowered back to Rey’s. His beloved Rey...

“And mine too, it seems," More tears fell. "We will be with you among the stars soon, mother.”

Leia shook her head. “Not yet, my Ben. Not just yet…”

Because of course she couldn’t leave just yet. The answer to their plight had been with her all along, resting on a shelf as her last gift from Old Ben Kenobi. She’d had it in her possession for decades, and in her passing she finally knew what to do.

“My boy...don’t you remember your favorite fairy tale?”

**Author's Note:**

> I do love a good fairy tale :-) I was inspired to write this after watching Snow White and reading the fic Into the Woods by KyloTrashForever - which involves another favorite fairy tale of mine. If you haven't read it yet drop this like a hot potato and go read it now!


End file.
